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He lifted Beethoven’s heart, then broke it. As much as the Civil Code or the Banque de France, which Napoleon survived for two centuries, it is an art influenced by him. (“Inspired” doesn’t.) There’s an old story from the third symphony Heroic, he was given his name until the Emperor crowned himself. The Romantics of England, whether pro (Byron) or anti (Wordsworth), were no less obsessive. Stanley Kubrick also tried a biopic before settling on simpler issues: the Vietnam War, the nature of free will.
It is not, then, a way of awakening to discuss the meaning of the man who has divided France on the centenary of his death. I’m not going to go into that either: this country and its former colonies are better off judging whether it was “Enlightenment on horseback”. All I know is that if France has taken a part of its identity out of embroidered events, it has plenty of company.
There are two reasons why I respond to “globalist” shamelessness, and it’s not even sweet idealism. The first is the lack of choice on the subject. My citizenship is not like my hometown, it is not my country of origin, it is not my place of residence. Four times I could represent “continent” in that phrase “country”. Who would I be fooled if I played pro-independence jingo or stickler? It could also be said that the multilingual actor Peter Ustinov and a fan of world government had a continent. It’s easier for me to get married in South America, live in Australasia, and complete the set.
The other reason – and the door Napoleon brings home – is that nationality requires mental distress. (“Lies” are polite.) In order to evoke feelings for people who have nothing in common beyond the territory, there must be incentive myths. Hence the deification of complex historical characters. This is also why the appearance of uninterrupted bloodlines, the uniqueness of reading in features everywhere, the consecration of things that are as random and unchanging as boundaries.
Academic historians have a phrase with this little guy. “There is no national history.” That is, dig a little deeper, and even an “ancient” nation is based on myth and mixed with others. Yes, globalism is a thin identity, if at all. But it doesn’t require you to be a fabulist.
It is linked to Britain, among other things, because it is rare to achieve universal health, an account of World War II that could raise eyebrows in Russia, and in itself a sense of the sea, Spain, the Netherlands and the rest of the famous shipless continent. Winston Churchill fulfills Napoleon as the god who will fill him, eventually problematizing him.
As far as America is concerned, the binding myth is an option, regardless of parental wealth (news for scholars of comparative social mobility) or national origin. “My story is not possible in any other country on earth,” said Barack Obama when he was that great character: a member of the Illinois Senate. In his view, what most successful immigrants from Canada, Britain or France do with their careers lies between him and his speaker-writer.
Now, believe me when I say that this kind of happiness goes on. “No myths, no nations,” Gore Vidal wrote. “No nation, no order,” he could add. I know what happens when a society loses cohesion. That’s how I came to clear the cold end of the Eurasian land mass. Give me a myth about chaos that is likely an alternative.
It yes making myths, however. It seems to me that a nation is as much an act of faith as a religion. So Napoleon’s queue is not a story. The story is that eruptions of such doubt and dissent do not affect almost every country, almost all the time. Next to the urban state or multi-ethnic empire, it is the newest form of social organization. It is not the wet commitment to the fundamental unity of man that leaves me fresh in the nation. I just think, without a dose of believing, that there isn’t “there”.
Send Janan to the email address janan.ganesh@ft.com
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